Glass. 
Book 



PHILLIPS'S SPEECH 



ON 



South American Liberty. 



THE 



SPEECH, 



OP 



C. PHILLIPS, Esq. 

AS DELIVERED 

'AT A SPLENDID COMPLIMENTARY DINNER GIVEN TO 

Major-General D'EVEREUX, 

AND THE CAUSE OF 

South American FREEDOM, 

At Morrison's Hotel, Dublin, August 1819. 



Hoifton : 

PUBLISHED BY GEORGE HEBERT, 88, CHEAPSIDE. 

1819. 



[PRICE ONE PENNY.] 

T. H. COE. Pinter, 10, Little 'Carter Lane, St. Paul'*. 




THE 

SPEECH 

OF 

CHARLES PHILLIPS, Esq. 

IN THE CAUSE OF 

South American Freedom. 



My Lord and Gentlemen, 

I sincerely thank you : to be re- 
membered when my countrymen 
are celebrating the cause of freedom 
and humanity, cannot fail to be 
grateful 5 to be so remembered, 
when a personal and valued friend 
is the object of the celebration, 
carries with it a double satisfaction ; 
and you will allow me to say, that 
it* any thing" could enhance the 
pleasure of such feelings, it is the 
consciousness that our meeting can 
give just offence to no one. 

Topics too often have risen up 
amongst us, where the best feelings 
were painfully at variance : where 
silence would have been guilt, and 
utterance was misery. But surely 
here, at length, is an occasion 
where neither sect nor party are 
opposed ; where every man in the 
country may clasp his brother by 
the hand, and feel and boast the 
electric communication. To un- 
manacle the slave, to unsceptre the 
despot, to erect an altar on the 
Inquisition's grave, to raise a peo- 
ple to the attitude of freedom, to 



found the temples of science and of 
commerce, to create a constitution, 
beneath whose ample arch every 
human creature, no matter what his 
sect, his colour, or his clime, may 
stand sublime in the dignity of 
manhood — these are the glorious 
objects of this enterprise ; and the 
soul must be imbruted, and the 
heart must be ossified, which does 
not glow with the ennobling sym- 
pathy. Where is the slave so abject 
as to deny it ? — Where is the states- 
man who can rise from the page of 
Spanish South America, and affect 
to commiserate the fall of Spain ? 
Her tyranny, even from its cradle 
to its decline, has been the indeli- 
ble disgrace of Christianity and of 
Europe ; it was born in fraud, bap- 
tized in blood, and reared by rapine ; 
it blasphemed all that was holy — it 
cankered all that was happy ; the 
most simple habits — the most sacred 
institutions — the most endeared and 
inoffensive customs, escaped not 
inviolate the accursed invader ; the 
hearth, the throne, the altar, lay 
confounded in one common ruin 3 



phillips's speech on south American freedom. 



3 



and when the innocent Children 
of the San confided for a moment 
in the Christian's promise, what! — 
oh, shame to Spain ! oh, horror to 
Christianity ! oh, eternal stigma 
on the name of Europe ! — what did 
they behold ? — the plunder of their 
fortunes — the desolation of their 
houses — the ashes of their cities — 
their children murdered without 
distinction of sex — the ministers of 
their faith expiring amid tortures — 
the person of their Ynca, their loved, 
their sacred, their heroic Ynca, 
quivering in death upon a burn- 
ing furnace ; and the most natural 
and the most excusable of all ido- 
latries, their consecrated Sun-beam, 
clouded by the murky smoke of an 
inquisition streaming with human 
gore, and raised upon the ruins of 
all that they held holy ! These 
were the feats of Spain in South 
America ! This is the fiery and 
despotic sway, for which an exe- 
crable tyrant solicits British neu- 
trality. 

Ireland, at least, has given her 
answer. An armed legion of her 
chosen youth bears it at this hour 
in thunder on the waters, and the 
sails are swelling for their brave 
companions. I care not if his ty- 
ranny was ten thousand times more 
crafty, more vigilant, more fero- 
cious than it is — when a people will 
it, their liberation is inevitable — 
their very inflictions will be con- 
verted into the instruments of their 
freedom — they will write its char- 
ter even in the blood of their stripes 
— they will turn their chains into 
the weapons of their emancipation. 
If it were possible still moie to 
animate them, let them only think 
on the tyrant they have to combat 
—that odious concentration ot qua- 
lities at once the most opposite, 
and the most contemptible — timid 
and sanguinary — effeminate and 
ferocious — impious and supersti- 
tious — now embroidering a petti- 
coat, now imprisoning an hero — 
to-day kneeling to a God of mercy, 
to-morrow lighting the hell of in- 
quisition — at noun embracing his 
ministerial pandar, at midnight 
starting from a guilty dream, to 
fulminate his banishment — the al- 
ternate victim of his fury and his 
fears — faithful only to ah infidel 



priestcraft, which excites his ter- 
rors and fattens on his crimes, and 
affects to worship the anointed 
slave as he trembles enthroned on 
the bones of his benefactors. Who 
can sympathize with such a mon- 
ster? Who can see unmoved a 
mighty empire writhing in the em- 
braces of this human Boa ? My 
very heart grows faint within me 
when 1 think how many thousands 
of my gallant countrymen have 
fallen to crown him with that en- 
sanguined diadem — when I reflect 
that genius wrote, and eloquence 
spoke, and valour fought, and fide- 
lity died for him, while he was 
tasting the bitterness of captivity • 
and that his ungrateful restoration 
has literally withered his realm into 
a desert, where the widow and or- 
phan weep his sway, and the scep- 
tre waves, not to govern but to 
crush ! 

Never, my lord, never, whether 
we contemplate the good they have 
to achieve, the evil they have to 
overcome, or the wrongs they have 
to avenge — never did Avarriors 
march in a more sacred contest. 
Their success may be - uncertain, 
but it is not uncertain that every 
age and clime will bless their me- 
mories, for their sword is garland- 
ed with freedom's flowers, patriot- 
ism gives them an immortal bloom, 
and piety breathes on them an un- 
dying fragrance. Let the tyrant 
menace, and the hireling bark — 
wherever Christianity kneels, or 
freedom breaches, their deeds shall 
be recorded ; and when their ho- 
noured dust is gathered to its la- 
thers, millions they have redeemed 
will be their mourners, and an 
emancipated hemisphere their en- 
during monument. 

Go, then, soldier of Ireland 
(turning to General D'Evereux), 

" Go where glory waits thee." 

Montezuma's spirit*, from his bed 
of coals, through the mist of ages 



* Mr. Phillips here alludes! to the 
fate of Montezuma, the most unfortu- 
nate and the most heroic of the sove- 
reigns of Mexico. The Spaniards tre- 
panned him into their power, and 
stretched him upon a bed of red hot 
coals ! When he was expiring, he turn- 



phillips's speech on south American freedom. 



calls to you for vengeance ; the pa- 
triot Cortes, in their dungeon vaults, 
invoke your retribution ; the graves 
of your brave countrymen, tramp- 
led by tyranny, where they died for 
freedom, are clamorous for revenge ! 
Go — plant the banner of green on 
the summit of the Andes. May vic- 



ed to one of his followers, whose tor- 
tures made him shriek — " Look at your 
Yuoa, (said he mildly), do you think I 
am on a Led of roses?" 



tory guide, and mercy ever follow 
it ! If you should triumph, the 
consummation will be liberty ; and 
in such a contest should you even 
perish, it will be as martyrs perish 
in the blaze of your own glory. 
Yes, you shall sink, like the Sun of 
the Peruvians, whom you seek to 
liberate, amid the worship of a peo- 
ple, and the tears of a world ; and 
you will rise re-animate, refulgent, 
*and immortal ! 



FINIS. 



T&e following SPEECHES, as delivered by C. Phillips, Esq. may he 
had of G. HeberTj 88, Cheapside. 

I GUTHRIE v. STERNE— Price 4d. 

2. CREIGHTON v. TOWNSEND— 2d. 

3. BROWNE v. BLARE— 2d. 

4. The ADDRESS to the ELECTORS of SLIGO.— 2d. 
- 5. WILKINS v. BLAKE — 2d. 

6. HISTORICAL CHARACTER of NAPOLEON BONA- 
PARTE— 2d. 

7. FITZGERALD v. KERR— 4d. 



COE, Printer, 10, Little Carter Lane, St. Paul's. 



